Calico Ball

June 5th, marked the 30th anniversary of the Calico Ball! For 3 decades this incredible program has been a rite of passage for all BCSD 3rd graders, and with this anniversary we have some incredible news to share.

After the Calico Ball was cut from the district budget in 2008, the Beacon Arts & Education Foundation had garnered financial support from the Beacon community to keep this program alive for the next 10 years. Because of your generosity, this amazing international music and dance residency has continued to exist and thrive. Now, BAEF would like to thank our Superintendent, the Board of Education and our administration for doing something we were always told was the impossible: taking back a program that had been previously cut from a school budget. From now on, the BCSD will be funding the Calico Ball in their regular budget!

Special thanks to Superintendent Matt Landahl for seeing the value of the Calico Ball after spending only one year in our district, and of course to Meredith Heuer for her tireless advocacy for the Ball and for BAEF, and for her mentorship throughout. But the biggest thank you must go to YOU - the Beacon community: our local businesses, PTOs, private citizens, and community organizations - for knowing how important this program is and doing what you can to support it for the last ten years. We couldn’t have done any of this without you!

The district taking on the funding of this treasured and unique program marks both a victory and a turning point for BAEF. Without the responsibility of maintaining the Calico Ball, BAEF will now be free to explore and introduce all manner of new programming, and with the partnership of the district and the new Arts in Education Coordinator, we can work on building a real arts in education fund for the BCSD to support many new and exciting programs in the future.